Southern Californians looking for answers during first presidential debate

As the first TV showdown between President Barack Obama and challenger Mitt Romney shakes out Wednesday night, Southern Californians will have lots of questions.

What can each candidate do for me? What can each do to bolster the Golden State?

Thrust and parry. Dodge and dart. The verbal zinger. The first bout between the Democratic incumbent and his Republican challenger may help voters glean more about each candidate than months of superficial sound bites.

"This is a close election, so I think it's highly anticipated," said Peter Marston, a professor of communications at Cal State Northridge whose focus is on political debate.

But, he added, for a region like Southern California, which leans Democratic overall, "it's a pure horse race, pure political theater."

Still, from San Bernardino to Pasadena, from Long Beach to the San Fernando Valley, residents reeling from the recession still want answers for Southern California. | Photos

The Los Angeles News Group has examined the importance of the presidential debates in respect to key issues that affect Southern California: its economy; immigration and enforcement; energy and aerospace; global trade and transport; and education.

Economy

Whether Obama or Romney wins on Nov. 6, Southern California and the nation may verge on another recession.

That's the view from the Congressional Budget Office and other observers who worry about the prospect of a "fiscal cliff" - or tax hikes and automatic budget cuts scheduled to go in effect at the beginning of next year.

Immediately after Election Day, the lame duck Congress and president must decide a more surgical approach to deficit reduction than the sweeping cuts that are currently written into law.

If no compromise is made, hundreds of billions of dollars could be taken out of the economy next year. If a deal is made, Washington finds some breathing room to deal with a $1.3 trillion deficit that could still be as high as $612 billion in 2017, according to White House estimates.

The most important thing either candidate can say during Wednesday night's debates is how they would find a way to solve the gridlock of the past few years that has made solving the nation's fiscal problems a virtual impossibility.

"Number one, first and foremost, is how you're going to convince a severely divided Congress to deal with the fiscal cliff," Redlands-based economist John Husing said. "If we don't deal with the fiscal cliff, we are going to have a deep recession in 2013."

Husing doesn't expect either candidate to spend much time talking about the housing market, but he thinks the economy cannot improve as long as so many homeowners' mortgage debt exceeds the values of their homes.

"The only way you're going to deal with that is to bring down what people owe," he said.

The Obama campaign has made higher taxes on upper income earners a part of its deficit-reduction platform, alongside previously enacted spending cuts and anticipated savings from ending the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Romney proposes substantial cuts to nondefense spending and counts on reduced taxes being able to stimulate economic growth.

Los Angeles-based economist Jordan Levine said he wants more details on each candidates' fiscal plans.

"I would like to hear some specifics; obviously, they've talked about getting rid of deductions, but there hasn't been much clarity," he said.

Levine, a researcher for Beacon Economics, said he is concerned about the country's deficit but thinks reducing unemployment is a more immediate concern.

If Obama or Romney debate any stimulus measures, Levine said he would be more interested in hearing about infrastructure work that may help unemployed construction workers.

"In the short run, austerity may undercut the recovery," Levine said.

Immigration

With nearly 24 million Latinos eligible to vote this year - including almost 6 million in the Golden State - what candidates say about this issue could have real impact at the polls.

"Both candidates may owe Latino voters an apology," said Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC.

Romney has called for "self-deportation" of undocumented immigrants and Obama has continually made promises to address the issue and never followed through, he said.

"Both candidates are dealing with political cross-pressures that have kept them from acting but neither has made any significant effort to realistically address the problem," Schnur said.

Obama will likely stress his recent executive order that allows undocumented immigrants who came to the country as children to work in the country without fear of deportation. Romney will likely discuss his support for legal immigrants, Schnur said.

However, neither is expected to devote much time or effort to the broader question of what to do with the estimated 11.5 million people in the country without documentation.

The sweeping bipartisan naturalization and legalization plan introduced by Sens. Ted Kennedy and John McCain in 2005 under President George W. Bush never made it out of Congress. However, several experts say this plan offers a reasonable starting point for discussion.

Some believe the nation should encourage inclusion and help immigrants maximize their possibilities for education and economic mobility.

"Legal status for honest, hardworking, undocumented immigrants and their families would be a step in this direction, and one that is in the American tradition," said UC Irvine professor Leo Chavez in an email.

David Bier, a policy analyst with the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute, said he sees little difference in the two candidates' overall immigration policies.

Both agree with militarization of the border and believe employers are responsible for enforcing immigration law. Both take similar stances on illegal immigration.

Bier argues that a better immigration system would include "an orderly and accessible process for entry" because of how many would-be immigrants are unable to enter legally.

"The only solution to illegal immigration is to legalize it," Bier said.

Energy and Aerospace

Thousands of engineers, scientists and other workers in Southern California's aerospace industry will look for reassurance from Wednesday's presidential debate.

After a decade of strong sales by aerospace and military contractors, government belt-tightening is leading to job cuts and program cancellations or delays.

Even more ominous for the industry is what has become known as sequestration - automatic across-the-board cuts if the federal government cannot agree to a budget by Jan. 1.

Half of the $1.2 trillion in cuts would be in the Department of Defense budget, the main customer for many local aerospace businesses. The Aerospace Industries Association estimates such cuts would eliminate 2.14 million American jobs, many in Southern California.

"The debates are very much in our minds," AIA spokesman Dan Stohr said. "We're hoping to see some discussion and some plans in terms of what's to be done about sequestration, what the overall plan on defense spending is going to be."

For example, Boeing Co. builds Air Force satellites in El Segundo and C-17 military cargo planes in Long Beach. Northrop Grumman Corp. manufactures military aircraft sections in El Segundo and Palmdale.

Aerospace companies also want to hear about plans for NASA's budget, Stohr said.

"We would love to see the research-and-development tax credit become permanent," said Gary Johnson, vice president of Ace Clearwater Enterprises, a Torrance-based aerospace parts maker that also has a facility in Paramount. "We want whoever becomes president or stays president to understand the importance of R&D in aerospace to continue our lead."

From oil refineries in the South Bay to millions of motorists and other consumers, federal energy policy is critical to this region.

If President Obama truly favors a so-called "all-of-the-above energy strategy" that supports a mix of traditional and newer energy sources, some asked why do his policies restrict availability of coal, oil and even natural gas?

"I'm not sure what Obama could tell me to convince me that he sees a future role for fossil fuels," said Joel West, a professor of innovation and entrepreneurship at the Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences in Claremont. "I'd more want to put him on record in supporting these things so later on he could be held accountable for that."

By contrast, Romney has emphasized traditional energy sources by calling for more oil drilling and fewer industry regulations in general.

"I'd like Romney to recognize that there are certain cases in which renewable energy can be successful today or can soon be successful with a little bit of government support," West said. "Because otherwise he risks being perceived as another stooge for the oil companies."

International Trade and Transportation

The role of trade and transportation has been overlooked in the presidential candidates' talk about the economy, according to some local experts.

The presidential debates should address the U.S. competitiveness in international trade and the ability to maintain the movement of goods, said Thomas O'Brien, director of the Research Center for International Trade and Transportation at Cal State Long Beach.

"There's a lot of (political) talk about the economy," O'Brien said, "but not trade and the role it plays."

He said that infrastructure from highways and bridges plays a key role in the success of trade and commerce, with not enough attention on maintenance.

He also said the the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles are key to international trade.

About 40 percent of the nation's imports enter through these ports, which then flow via road or rail through Southern California before they're distributed throughout the nation.

The regional impacts of this - from traffic to pollution - have been challenged by local communities.

While Obama has made key trade agreements, China will continue to be a thorn to foreign trade policy, O'Brien said, and the next president will have to balance trade with Asia with human-rights issues.

"It will be a challenge for whoever wins the election," he said. "Whoever is in office will have a difficult balancing act."

Education

Educators say they'll be listening closely to the first presidential debate, and for ideas on how to better prepare students for college and careers, and to lower the dropout rate.

Students also need greater access to science, technology, engineering and mathematics - or STEM education - to meet the demands of a global marketplace, he said.

"Education remains our nation's highest priority and the federal government should shift to allow a strong reliance on local control in providing service to our community," said Dale Marsden, superintendent of San Bernardino City Unified School District.

Others called for a more profound education discussion between presidential candidates.

"The challenge is to decide whether or not we really value what we know and espouse about the American education system ... or are we going to continue this non-stop blame game throughout the system, because what we're asking schools to do is expensive and complex," said Jay Fiene, dean of Cal State San Bernardino's College of Administration.

So far, neither candidate gets an "A," he said.

Obama is moving in the right direction - or toward the so-called common core curriculum and teacher assessments, he said.

But Fiene has been less impressed with Romney's comments on education.

"It still seems like the easiest thing is to bash how expensive it is and how expensive it is to do," he said. "But the reality is we're doing a hell of a lot with a much greater percentage of kids."

'Everything matters'

While the candidates will not be focusing on the Southland per se, political junkies say many of the issues intersect with battleground states such as Ohio, Florida, Iowa and Nevada.

"The bottom line is a lot of the same issues they have, we have in Southern California - jobs, and all the rest," said professor Lawrence Becker, chairman of the CSUN Political Science Department.

"The truth is, in a particularly close election, everything matters. And of all the debates, the first one matters most."